Okay, here's the thing: I don't want to get eaten, so I've decided not to apply for a job as a dog walker. Now, I fully believe that, instead, the government should allow me to kill people's dogs and then drag them 'round the block by their leashes. But, APPARENTLY, dogs aren't carcinogens, so no one cares. But you see how I've got the option to, oh I don't know, not apply for that particular line of minimum-wage employment?

(Edit: Oh good lord, yes, I'm a smoker. Don't mind me, I'm not even seriously arguing the point. That was 97% just a chance for me to remind you of the serious threats that are being ignored in all this worry over a little bit of smoke.)

So, a fair compromise might be to allow proprieters to choose whether or not they make their venues smoke - free, while at the same time making the 'pro smoking' proprieters pay a proportion of his or her staff's national insurance contributions as compensation for the increased risk the staff are exposed to. That way, employers don't get to compromise their employees' health in the persuit of profit, and non smoking venues will be able to compete on a level playing field with smoking venues.

The fair compromise is that I actually drink at bars(and thus give more tips than I would to said bartenders if I was drinking at my house with friends as an alternative bar) if they let me smoke. Until they actually ban smoking in bars in Indianapolis(that chart isn't exactly accurate, we have smoking in the Casinos too) then I go to bars, when they become an oasis for clean lunged and hard livered establishments of divine health then I drink at home with friends as the alternative setup.

i hate to break it to you but that small little part of Alabama that is Huntsville recently stopped allowing smoking in restaurants. actually, i think they had the businesses make the decision. if they wanted to serve families, they had to go No Smoking. since that's all that lives in this place, the bulk of the businesses followed the money. i'm not sure they ever allowed it in the workplace. the surrounding cities have begun adopting the same policy.

as Huntsville goes, so goes the rest of Alabama. even if it is 10-20 years later. :)

Works fine as long as restaurants and pubs have equal provision for both smokers and non smokers. However, if the prevailing economic situation means it's more profitable for establishments to cater entirely to smokers, then more venues will do just that. More jobs in the industry for those who smoke, fewer for those who don't. I'm not saying that proprietors shouldn't have the right to allow smoking, just that it's not fair to allow a situation that makes workers choose between a job and better health.

Since you're basing this on a very flimsy view of free market economics(including demand).... you're saying no non-smokers drink? So all those ballots are just cranky bastards whining? Or is there a market for non-smoking bars where bartenders, servers, and proprietors could all profit from nonsmokers?

This has as much to do about free market economics as it does anything else. If the demand is truly 50 percent or higher then bars would've already set up prior to a ban that would capitalize on this. And there are already popular bars around here(in Indiana of all places) that are non-smoking due to the employers preference. If this is true in my state then it's true in other places... now if the question is some people don't like the atmosphere of a said bar that's nonsmoking, then that's not very bright. The only business(and employees) that seem to benefit financially off of smoking bans are liquor stores.

My grandmother died of cancer before I was born. And she never smoked anything in her life, nor did she drank. My granddad, her husbund, use to smoke, but not very often. Maybe a 20 pack for 2 weeks. That's not a lot of smoking. He died at 68 (maybe 70) of a brain hemorrhage (that's the word, I think). It was his third time. But he got to know all of us (we are five brothers). My other grampa died of diabetes. He was 76 and he never smoked nor drank, also.

There's a point in all of these discussions, but at the same time, there isn't. No matter how much we disscus this, there is an ultimately truth: interest, profit. The companies make profit from smoking, but politicians make profit from non-smoking. Yeah, I may sound naive, but I'm also right!! :P I mean, since when did politicians started to give a shit about people? And, come on, the companies pay wages. Politicians get paid wages. Simple maths? Nah, I'm not even sure what the fuck I'm talking about, but the thing is nothing is made selflessly, without expecting something in return. Specially in politics. There must be some kind of arrengement, I don't know.

But hey, fuck 'em. I'll smoke outside bars if I have to. It's not the end of the world. Personally, I'm more afraid of politicians than the ill effects of smoking.

But smoking in bus shelters? On train platforms? The only harm being caused here is to people's increasingly delicate sensibilities. Sure, you may find the smell of a cigarette unpleasant, but guess what? There are a whole lot of things people may find unpleasant about you.

Your right. I've been dying to corner a smoker in a bus shelter and let rip with a really sulferous, Indian and lager induced fart. Like I said, we're all hypocrites.

Here in Wyoming 3 of the largest towns (we don't actually have cities here) have banned public smoking, and a push to enact a statewide ban failed this year because this is a "budget-bill-only" year and other types of bills need 2/3 vote to be considered. But next year is "non-budget" so it will likely pass.

So, a smoking friend of mine has to take her smoke breaks by standing outside the building in 20-deg-F weather with Cheyenne's howling 30mph winds. I'm sure that's healthy for her.

As Popeye said, "I yam disgustipated."

We should replace the cowboy logo on our license plates with a silhouette of Mary Fucking Poppins.

I'm pretty sure one of the Canadian provinces allows for pubs and restaurants to choose a smoking or non-smoking license (the smoking license being more expensive).

For the general public, fuck 'em. If they're going to go to a bar that allows smoking, they can jam it up their asses if they feel like complaining. Just. Don't. Go. If me smoking on the street bothers them, then I should be able to cite their breaches of the "That Deodorant Smells Like Ass Act 2002" and the "Wow. You Really Are A Tool Act 1997"

As for the worker's end of things, does anyone know if any smoking ban/regulations have ever come from genuine complaints from worker's unions or guilds, etc.? Or is this just complete arbitration on the part of the government?

I think the taxes on cigarettes are crazy, considering we pay nearly €7.50 for cigarettes here, and rise in the price of cigarette seems to directly correlate with the decline of attention to the health service.... Plus the fact that governments are essentially slowly shutting down an industry that employs thousands of people...

A quick aside: Tampons and condoms are taxed as luxury items here in Ireland. Is that the same anywhere else?

The push for these smoking bans (in North Amerika anyway) comes largely from an outfit called the Lindesmith Center, which is primarily funded by Johnson & Johnson, purveyors of nicotine patches and other stop-smoking nostrums. They go around to local clergymen and the various closet fascists in the health care industry and get them to lobby city councils and state legislators to enact these bans, using horror stories about bar waitresses dying of lung cancer at age 32. Thereby are smokers badgered and harassed into quitting, and most of them will buy those fucking nicotine patches.

Businesses that don't want to go to the trouble can just be non-smoking. Businesses that do will have happy little smokers in their own special room, and happy little non-smokers in the rest of the place.

I'm pretty sure one of the Canadian provinces allows for pubs and restaurants to choose a smoking or non-smoking license (the smoking license being more expensive).

I'm not informed as to the licensing, but there are a number of bars here that have indoor rooms with fans that you can drink in. Unfortunately most of them were just knocked up so they wouldn't lose their barflys and are so obnoxiously loud or nasty dirty that you'd never want to set foot in them long enough to finish your smoke. There are a number of other places that have gone the sheltered patio way though. It is a little bit cold, but as long as I'm not getting pissed on by mother nature I'm happy.

I remember there were cigarettes in Korea that were aimed at nonsmokers. They were called Ones and only had a gram of tar in them. Like sucking through a straw without the rush.

You can get similar things in Canada, but they're made with higher grade tobacco sos not to cut back too much on your craving intervals. Also, they're marketed towards women, because they're long and pretty.

I was a bartender in the first place in Canada (Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario) to pass an anti-smoking bylaw using the second hand smoke argument. This allowed the bylaw's proponents to make it a public health issue in order to sidestep any discussion in a public forum. It became a workers safety issue essentially.

Proponents of the bylaw claimed that the service industry staff were crying out for this protection, but petitions and surveys in bars that showed otherwise were not mentioned.

The real issue of personal freedom was completely avoided. Bars and restaurants are privately owned and non-essential. There is never a time when someone must go into one and no one needs to work there. If you consider second hand smoke a risk you can make your own decision on whether or not to enter. The decision to allow an activity should be left to the proprietor, not legislated. A society needs a place where fringe activities can be performed by consensual participants. Disapproval of an act is not justification for making it unlawfull.

You may have noticed at the beginning I mentioned that I was a bartender. The bylaw destroyed the bar industry here. Since we were the only region to not allow smoking, at first many customers just went to neighbouring communities to have a smoke with their beer,though admittedly that didn't last. What really hurt was the bastard way the laws were enforced and how they were constantly altered to reflect their intent. Shortly before the bylaw passed owners were told to install a partitioned and ventilated smoking section.After the expense of complying suddenly they couldn''t use them. You needed an outside shelter beyond the serving area. So they built those. Then it culdn't be enclosed,it needed one wall open. Then two.And remove the roof. Currently you can't smoke on open patios or near the entrance to a liscensed area.You have to go outside (In Canada, where last week it was minus thirty degrees with windchill) or receive a fine larger than you would get for smoking an illegal joint.There is now a fifth as many bars as there use to be and nobody is making the money they used to.

Oh and for the record I've never smoked a cigarette.I use to hide my coat in the beer cooler so it wouldn't stink of smoke and for twenty years I sneezed black crap at the end of my shift. Nobody made me work in bars, I made my own decision to do so.

The smoking ban in Maryland just started on Feb. 1. I was talking to a friend that goes to a bar with a lot of smokers and he said that one of the workers said their business dropped 17% since the ban.

I'm against the ban. I don't smoke and I see the hazards of it. But it personal freedoms that are being taken away. Each bar should make their own rules. There's a bar that has always been no smoking and gained its own crowd because of that. I've been into plenty of smoking bars and I go if I want. I ultimately do not have to go. That's what it comes down to.

If smoking was so bad for people, then they would outlaw tobacco. It'll never happen.

In Calgary, Aberta, the businesses can circumvent the smoking ban by achieving "casino status", which basically means people can legally smoke in your place if you get a VLT. There might be a minumum number of VLTs, like 5 or 10, but all the places that really want to have smoking in their bars are generally finding that they aren't keeping up with the non-smoking bars, and they make a hell of a lot of money attracting the health-wave crowd.

I think there should definitely be places indoors where a person can go sit have a whiskey, a steak and a smoke, but honestly it's not a huge concern to me if we have to stand outside for 5 minutes while they do the last part of that. It's a restriction on personal freedoms, yes definitely, but it's also a restriction on the non-smokers personal freedoms when they can't go have a whiskey and a steak without a smoke second-hand. I just wish there were enough smokers to keep all these rebel bars in business.

It's called "Tyranny of the majority", and if you have any personal interests at all, you won't be happy with the outcome.

Here in Maine, smoking is illegal in just about any public place of business. Smoke shops are exempt because it's assumed that people going in are smokers. You can smoke in private clubs, but the only clubs around here are the Elks and Masons and such.

Bangor recently passes a law making it illegal to smoke in your car when there is a minor present. The rest of the state is looking to pass the same measure.

I bounced in a titty bar when you could still smoke inside and I don't miss it a bit when I go out, even though I smoke when I'm lit.

It's a restriction on personal freedoms, yes definitely, but it's also a restriction on the non-smokers personal freedoms when they can't go have a whiskey and a steak without a smoke second-hand

I'm sorry Cyman but you're wrong. The non-smokers are not having their freedom resticted by allowing smoking in bars and restaurants. Nor are the smokers losing theirs when smoking is banned.The loss of personal freedom and the loss of personal choice is incurred by the owner of the business.

On private property the proprietor should determine the atmosphere in which business is conducted. A law forcing a business to allow smoking would be just as wrong as one banning it. As would laws requiring or banning certain foods, music, dress, etc. It should be up to the establishment to decide what kind of business they want to run.